5 ms·

> They're fixated on cyclists running red lights and stop signs, not distinguishing between different kinds of bikes Absolutely agree this is silly and cities

> They're fixated on cyclists running red lights and stop signs, not distinguishing between different kinds of bikes Absolutely agree this is silly and cities should be encouraging cycling. > We want to encourage people to bike less and drive more assuming you meant to flip this? An e-bike that can even do 20mph comfortably is much closer to a moped than a bicycle, partly due to weight, and partly due to "ease of speed". Obviously a person can easily cycle 20mph, but it just isn't the kind of thing you do on in a crowded area. Very different when it is just a throttle. So grouping them in with bikes, rather than mopeds or similar, is just extremely silly

alecst 1y ago
Yea I switched my words around, thanks.
AdamN 1y ago
Getting a pedelec bike to 20mph takes real effort unless cheats are involved - it's not really a moped. However there needs to be some honest classification that's global to handle the new spectrum from traditional bike to full on motorcycle and everything in between.
- close04 1y ago
  Depending on the country the motor cutoff is 32km/h, which means that speed is more accessible to your average rider than on a classic bike. And the elephant in the room is how compliant many e-bikes really are. Some even advertised how easy it is to remove (raise?) the limit. Where I live I find cyclists to be the most reckless participants in traffic, way more than drivers and pedestrians. Cyclists never have to take even the most basic course even just in school to learn legislation or general rules. They always act like they own the road whether on the sidewalk among pedestrians, or on the street among cars. E-bikes just made this worse because everyone can cycle above their natural capabilities now. But it's also clear that the "blast radius" of a cyclist is usually very limited compared to the damage a car can cause even with banal actions like opening a door at the wrong time. So I understand why their behavior is tolerated compared to when drivers to the same.
  - ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
    Also, reckless behaviour is self-limiting to some degree with bike-shaped transport (and scooters) as crashing tends to hurt a lot, whereas car drivers don't have as much skin in the game.
- SauciestGNU 1y ago
  I don't completely disagree, but as a regular cyclist with maybe only slightly above average fitness, I can drop the hammer at an intersection and be at 22mph in 10 or 15 seconds. I also own an ebike with a throttle and it's not substantially faster off the line than my muscle, it's just easier to sustain high speeds.
conor- 1y ago
> An e-bike that can even do 20mph comfortably is much closer to a moped than a bicycle There are pedal assist ebikes hitting the market that are nearly indistinguishable from a road bicycle and weigh as much as a kitted out steel touring bike (i.e. ~35-40 lbs) and can comfortably do 20 mph.[0] I don't really think that's treading any sort of line of being close to a moped. Also there are absolutely people riding analog bikes capable of having an average cadence of 15-20 mph who ride with reckless abandon on crowded mixed-used paths in cities - so maybe you don't do that, but there's a pretty large subset of cyclists who are doing that because biking is more of a sport activity than strictly pragmatic form of transportation. Bad bike path etiquette extends beyond ebikes [0] ride1up is one brand making such bikes
ryandrake 1y ago
> Absolutely agree this is silly and cities should be encouraging cycling. They should be encouraging cycling, but not by making red lights a free-for-all. I once lived on the corner of a pretty busy cycling street by the beach in Florida, with a stoplight in the intersection outside my window. We had these gigantic "trains" of cyclists regularly just blowing straight through red lights, because there typically wasn't a lot of traffic coming from the cross street. I remember one occasion where a car was entering the intersection from the cross street (car had the green light, major street had the red), and a huge train of about 20 bicycles at full speed ran the red light and slammed into the side of the car with a loud "thump thump thump thump thump thump..." Total wreckage. Busted bicycles all over the street after they fucked up, and the cyclists had the nerve to be irate. If I hadn't run out and started recording, the car driver probably would have been assaulted by these raging hotheads. These guys need to obey traffic laws, too.
- bb88 1y ago
  Idaho has the "potato" laws for bikes, and they typically work out pretty well. The laws were made with the observation that cars kill more cyclists than cyclists kill cars. So allowing bikes more freedom in the street is typically better for bike safety.
  - pandaman 1y ago
    I don't see how cold this make sense. Pedestrians kill even fewer cars, should they be safer with even fewer restrictions? Perhaps let them walk on highways if more freedom means more safety?
    - const_cast 1y ago
      If you design your streets for pedestrian safety that means pedestrians will be more safe. The reason we have so many pedestrian limitations is because we design streets for cars first, and put everything else to the side, making those everything else incredibly endangered. More curves, lower limits, more stops. Cities that implement more bike-friendly and pedestrian-friendly design are safer for everyone, cars included.
bb88 1y ago
> Obviously a person can easily cycle 20mph, but it just isn't the kind of thing you do on in a crowded area. I've seen many road bikes do exactly this on a crowded bike path of pedestrians, scooters, and e-bikes. I've also seen e-bikes wait patiently to pass and slow down when there's traffic. I think proclaiming that e-bike riders are worse than road bike riders is patently false. So it's not really an "e-bike" problem. It's really a speed problem.

alecst 1y ago

Yea I switched my words around, thanks.

AdamN 1y ago

Getting a pedelec bike to 20mph takes real effort unless cheats are involved - it's not really a moped. However there needs to be some honest classification that's global to handle the new spectrum from traditional bike to full on motorcycle and everything in between.

close04 1y ago
Depending on the country the motor cutoff is 32km/h, which means that speed is more accessible to your average rider than on a classic bike. And the elephant in the room is how compliant many e-bikes really are. Some even advertised how easy it is to remove (raise?) the limit. Where I live I find cyclists to be the most reckless participants in traffic, way more than drivers and pedestrians. Cyclists never have to take even the most basic course even just in school to learn legislation or general rules. They always act like they own the road whether on the sidewalk among pedestrians, or on the street among cars. E-bikes just made this worse because everyone can cycle above their natural capabilities now. But it's also clear that the "blast radius" of a cyclist is usually very limited compared to the damage a car can cause even with banal actions like opening a door at the wrong time. So I understand why their behavior is tolerated compared to when drivers to the same.
- ndsipa_pomu 1y ago
  Also, reckless behaviour is self-limiting to some degree with bike-shaped transport (and scooters) as crashing tends to hurt a lot, whereas car drivers don't have as much skin in the game.
SauciestGNU 1y ago
I don't completely disagree, but as a regular cyclist with maybe only slightly above average fitness, I can drop the hammer at an intersection and be at 22mph in 10 or 15 seconds. I also own an ebike with a throttle and it's not substantially faster off the line than my muscle, it's just easier to sustain high speeds.

conor- 1y ago

> An e-bike that can even do 20mph comfortably is much closer to a moped than a bicycle There are pedal assist ebikes hitting the market that are nearly indistinguishable from a road bicycle and weigh as much as a kitted out steel touring bike (i.e. ~35-40 lbs) and can comfortably do 20 mph.[0] I don't really think that's treading any sort of line of being close to a moped. Also there are absolutely people riding analog bikes capable of having an average cadence of 15-20 mph who ride with reckless abandon on crowded mixed-used paths in cities - so maybe you don't do that, but there's a pretty large subset of cyclists who are doing that because biking is more of a sport activity than strictly pragmatic form of transportation. Bad bike path etiquette extends beyond ebikes [0] ride1up is one brand making such bikes

ryandrake 1y ago

> Absolutely agree this is silly and cities should be encouraging cycling. They should be encouraging cycling, but not by making red lights a free-for-all. I once lived on the corner of a pretty busy cycling street by the beach in Florida, with a stoplight in the intersection outside my window. We had these gigantic "trains" of cyclists regularly just blowing straight through red lights, because there typically wasn't a lot of traffic coming from the cross street. I remember one occasion where a car was entering the intersection from the cross street (car had the green light, major street had the red), and a huge train of about 20 bicycles at full speed ran the red light and slammed into the side of the car with a loud "thump thump thump thump thump thump..." Total wreckage. Busted bicycles all over the street after they fucked up, and the cyclists had the nerve to be irate. If I hadn't run out and started recording, the car driver probably would have been assaulted by these raging hotheads. These guys need to obey traffic laws, too.

bb88 1y ago
Idaho has the "potato" laws for bikes, and they typically work out pretty well. The laws were made with the observation that cars kill more cyclists than cyclists kill cars. So allowing bikes more freedom in the street is typically better for bike safety.
- pandaman 1y ago
  I don't see how cold this make sense. Pedestrians kill even fewer cars, should they be safer with even fewer restrictions? Perhaps let them walk on highways if more freedom means more safety?
  - const_cast 1y ago
    If you design your streets for pedestrian safety that means pedestrians will be more safe. The reason we have so many pedestrian limitations is because we design streets for cars first, and put everything else to the side, making those everything else incredibly endangered. More curves, lower limits, more stops. Cities that implement more bike-friendly and pedestrian-friendly design are safer for everyone, cars included.

bb88 1y ago

> Obviously a person can easily cycle 20mph, but it just isn't the kind of thing you do on in a crowded area. I've seen many road bikes do exactly this on a crowded bike path of pedestrians, scooters, and e-bikes. I've also seen e-bikes wait patiently to pass and slow down when there's traffic. I think proclaiming that e-bike riders are worse than road bike riders is patently false. So it's not really an "e-bike" problem. It's really a speed problem.